Lifelike Devotion: Neapolitan Wooden Sculpture in the Seventeenth Century

On Thursday, May 21st, at 4:00 pm, the Pagliara Library of the Suor Orsola Benincasa University in Naples will host the international conference “Seventeenth-Century Neapolitan Wooden Sculpture: Between Polychromy, Realism, and Devotion.” The event will feature two distinguished academics: Pierluigi Leone de Castris, one of the foremost experts in modern art history, and Giancarlo Fatigati, a restorer specializing in polychrome sculpture.

At the heart of the discussion will be ‘realism.’

The event, part of the ‘Maggio dei Monumenti,’ will explore the interplay between artisanal technique and religious tension that made Naples a capital of the Baroque. Central to the debate will be ‘realism’: an aesthetic sought by the Counter-Reformation to establish an emotional bond with the faithful. In this context, Neapolitan sculptors were masters at transforming humble woods into figures capable of ‘coming to life’ thanks to complex polychromy and hyperrealistic details. On the technical mastery of these workshops, Giancarlo Fatigati emphasizes how the goal was to create “increasingly expressive and gesticulating sculptures, designed with the intent to emotionally engage the faithful through the theatricality of the poses.”

The focus will be on masterpieces by artists such as Aniello Stellato and Giovan Bernardino Azzolino. As Pierluigi Leone de Castris states, Orsola Benincasa’s relationship with these images was total, dictated by a true desire for “physical, as well as mental, adherence to the torments of the Passion,” a bond so deep as to make the mystic’s life a true “portrait of the Crucified.” The event will be enriched by a visit to the exhibition “The Crucifixes of Orsola,” curated by Leone de Castris himself and set up in the University’s Museum Center. Participants will thus be able to admire in person the works discussed, gaining deeper insight into an artistic heritage that still retains its extraordinary emotional power.